


Loss of Life

by Nightmarechaser



Series: The Sorceress Supreme [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Best Friends, Death, Eldritch, Familiars, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pain, Siblings, fight to the death, one thats really fucked up, pseudo-mom, she dies, soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:52:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightmarechaser/pseuds/Nightmarechaser
Summary: And so a price is paid and family weeps
(nothing matters, nothing sticks, this will change)





	

**Author's Note:**

> And this is the end of one arc, from here go read my series "Mistress of Stars" to continue chronologically, or to one of my other 2 series ("The Black Witch" and "the forgotten") that are happening at the same time as this series.

            Her back hit the stone pillar hard enough to crack it and the impact knocked a small breath out of her. The demon watched her fall to the floor, chest down, head to the side, seeming to have finally died. He turned around with a smug smirk and began to triumphantly walk towards her family, only to stop as he hit an invisible wall. A moment of shock graced his face as he laid his hand on this sudden entrapment, then his expression abruptly changed to one of absolute fury and he pounded on it. The only tell it was even there was a slight distortion, like heat haze, rippling out from where his fist struck, and a slight brightening of eldritch symbols, yet unnoticed, scattered about, surrounding the area where they had fought.

            As he furiously attacked this new barrier, a quiet giggle started behind him. He spun around to find his enemy forcing her broken body up. One forearm on the ground, other arm straight out under her, barely holding her upper body up, Sara whipped her head up from looking at the cracked and broken tiles and shot a feral, fierce, too-wide grin, almost a snarl, at the horrible being in front of her.

            She wonderingly drawled out, “Wow, you really _are_ an idiot.”

            She slowly forced herself to her feet as he watched in anger, smiling her broken glass smile the whole while. Leaning far to the side, good arm wrapped around her bleeding middle, she defiantly looked at him, but then turned to her family behind the barrier and softened her smile to something much smaller, but much more real. She looked ready to apologize as she made eye contact with her horrified brother.

            “Jack,” she said, “I need you to go get The Drowning Mother for me. Tell Her that Her daughter is in danger.”

Seeing him open his mouth to protest, she quickly snapped out, “NOW!”

            He whipped around, clutching his staff in his fist, tight as a bear trap, and flew as fast as he possibly could down through the doors and out of sight. After watching him leave, she turned back to her foe as her smile hardened into a weapon sharp enough to cut. He was watching her with hatred in his eyes.

            “What. Did you. Do.” He seethed out at his much-too-pleased adversary.

            She condescendingly crooned, “Awwww, did you _really think_ I’d let you hurt them?” She starts to giggle again at the answering growl. “Ever hear of suicide spells? Real nasty things let me tell ya,” she tutted. “Requires the death of the caster to work, so you’d have to be either insane or suicidal to use ‘em,” her grin is more like a rapid wolf baring its fangs than any sort of friendly overture, “Good thing I’ve been both, right?”

            Blood starting to drip from pale lips shaped into a dagger of a smile, swaying on her feet, she starts to laugh out, “I cast one! And guess what? You did a _really_ good job, I’m dying!” she flings both arms out to the side in a mockery of celebration, “I’m a walking corpse! And you know what’s even better?” She lets her barely functioning arm fall limp at her side, tilts her head to the side, sharp smile still in place, and points at him. “I’m taking you down with me!” she throws out like it’s the greatest joke in the world.

            He yells out his rage and launches himself at her, and she throws herself to the side, laughing mad. She keeps cackling as she stumbles away from his attacks, a sound like broken glass, fit to rip and tear. A sound like something important went and died. A sound like sanity and morality had taken a run for the hills. A challenge and an unbearably smug brag and the unholy terror of being faced with your own mortality all wrapped up into one, literally laughing in the face of death.

            She doesn’t even pretend to fight any longer, she’s already won, just keeps dodging angered lunges. She moves like a marionette with the strings cut, a broken puppet, too limp and loose yet still stiff and jerky. She sways as she drags herself around like she’s a drunkard and this is just a barfight. She stumbles on a broken leg and throws herself around the room, every movement unnatural on a base level, possible only through sheer will power. She grins fit to break her face with a feral glint in her eyes and she _won’t stop laughing_. Even as she’s thrown and hit and ripped with each attack that she can’t dodge with such a battered body, she keeps laughing and laughing and laughing, her smile ripping itself a little wider each time she’s knocked down. She’s coughing up thick mucus, a mix of blood and foul backlash, and she’s laughing all the while, spraying morbid droplets from her lungs. She can’t, and won’t, last long, yet she still keeps cackling as she calls out taunts.

            “Did you really think I’d allow you to go free?!”

            “Too many people rely on me to be able take chances like that!”

            “You were doomed from the start! Damned if you did, Damned if you didn’t!”

            “Don’t bet against a sorceress, we always stack the odds!”

            “D’awww, don’t feel blue, if you stop now you probably have a minute before I die to try to undo the spell. Good luck without any spell books!”

            Ivy and Sara’s familiars watch in horror as he chases her around their makeshift ring in single-minded determination. Where she is moving as a broken thing, as something with nothing and everything left to lose (which she is), he is moving with the grace and ferocity of a predator. Enraged, but lucid, hunting her down with a freezing fury, slashing in controlled movements with claws and magic alike. Where she laughs unendingly, he growls with each miss and recovery.

            The laughing lunatic of a witch’s strength finally gives out and she stumbles and can no longer force herself back up. She gets one forearm under her and looks up at that who she has come to see as an embodiment of evil, barbed wire smile still firmly in place, and innocently giggles, “Eager to die, are we?”

            Datroic coolly raises a claw above her head, responds, “Eager to prevent whatever you were stalling for.”, and slashes down, impaling her head straight through.

            No sooner than he had than the sigils she had scratched in started to glow red hot and flew towards him, attaching themselves to his skin. The familiars huddled close together and Ivy had to cover her ears as he unleashed an unholy screech louder than anything she had ever heard, gagging as fowl maroon smoke billowed off of where the sigils burned him. He had ripped his claw out of Sara’s head as he stumbled around, in more pain than he had ever imagined, screeching his dying screams as he burned to death. He quickly collapsed to the ground, next to Sara’s bloody, mutilated corpse, and his horrific swan call died out as his throat was burned to an unrecognizable mass. In less than a minute, there was nothing left of him other than an ashy smear on the floor.

            There was a second of stunned stillness, before Ivy let out a startled cry and ran forward to the dead body of her best friend. She flipped what was left of Sara onto her back and hysterically shook her, calling out for her to get up, that this wasn’t funny. Chance was barking as to try to help Ivy, Jynx was scratching the smear as though she could fillet the one who hurt her witch through it, Grishnic was cawing out his sorrow, and Kitsune solemnly laid down next to her witch as if to wish her a peaceful rest.

            Ivy was screaming for Sara, her leaves rattling, when The Drowning Mother whisked in faster than anything should be able to. She dragged Jack behind Her, carelessly dropping him once She was inside the doorway and hurrying to Her daughter’s side. She forced the dryad away from Her daughter, Her daughter’s fox knew to move and Her daughter’s other pets didn’t draw near. She hovered above Her daughter, Her ragged robe hanging down over limp legs, and Her arms sprang into motion with unnatural grace, She had to work fast.

            She kept perfect posture as Her bottom pair of arms reached down and made motions as though they were unraveling fabric to gather yarn. Light gathered and rose out of Her daughter’s chest, curling like cigarette smoke into Her middle set of hands as Her top set hung slightly above, seeming to weave something. When all of the softly incandescent light was settled into Her hands, Her top hands used what they had weaved to wrap a shield around it. With Her daughter’s soul secured, She lightly rested her feet upon the ground.

            Jack and Ivy watched in shock and fear as She did something to Sara. When She was finished, She stood with one pair of arms limp at Her sides, one pair demurely held with clasped palms in front of Her, and the final pair holding what appeared to be a soap bubble filled with light. Even to their untrained eyes, the light looked ragged, worn thin. It was much like an old shirt, worn so much it started to gain holes, or like a moth eaten blanket. It was a soft gray, but caught the light much like oil in water did, reflecting a rainbow of colors. It was beautiful.

            “What did you do!? What did you do to her?!” Ivy demanded when she had found her voice.

            “I hold my daughter’s soul, safe within my hands, retrieved before it could disperse.”

            With that, She turned towards the exit. Jack made as though to grab Her arm, starting to let out a startled protest. She stopped as still and cold as marble, towering over him at twice his height, easy. There was never a more potent reminder of Her wrongness than Her power filling the air around Her slim form in that moment.

She cut him off with an ancient, eldritch voice, “ ** _I will not allow harm to come to my daughter._** ”

            He froze and slowly, hesitantly let his arm drop. They watched as She walked away, with too-smooth movements, with their dear friend. When the insane, forgotten Elder was out of sight, Ivy broke down crying. Jack quickly embraced her, tears quietly trailing down his face with him unaware, but he was still in shock, it hadn’t sunk in quite yet that Sara was gone. Sara’s familiars huddled close to the crying duo, joining in search of some sort of comfort in shared grief while simultaneously forming a furry and feathery barrier against the rest of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I wrote the death scene before most of the story  
> also the drowning mother's talking was much more eldritch and special looking but idk how to work ao3


End file.
